The advantage of utilizing a stent in conjunction with a PTCA or PTA procedure is well known. Earlier stents required an expansion procedure to expand the stent to provide support for the blood vessel after implantation. Later improvements including U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,003 regarding a Compressive Stent and Delivery System, Rodney G. Wolff et al co-invented by me, utilized a catheter system to hold a spring loaded stent compressed and to place the stent at the desired location within an artery. This approach greatly improved the utility of the stent and minimized previous problems, but required the use of multiple stents to provide support where a blood vessel curved to any extent and for extended lengths. While such an approach is possible the difficulty of spacing separate adjoining stents accurately and possible interference between these adjacent stents can reduce their effectiveness and will always increase the procedure time.